Recovered alcoholic Sharon Lewis who is now organising a non-alcoholic music festival

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With a boarding school education and a place at a prestigious stage school under her belt, a glittering career in showbiz seemed to beckon for Sharon Lewis.

But a crippling descent into alcoholism and spiralling cocaine use on the London party scene led to a spell in the Priory and a mess of wasted years for the talented youngster.

Now recovered, Sharon Lewis has lifted the lid on her booze and drugs hell as she prepares to stage a pioneering Welsh alcohol-free festival – starring the likes of Tinchy Stryder – to highlight the problem of substance misuse.

The 36-year-old, from Abergavenny, told Wales on Sunday how she:

* Developed a three-wine-bottles-a-day drink problem after first hitting the booze at 13;

* Hit “rock bottom” when she drunkenly proposed to a doctor treating her after a 9am vodka binge;

* Sneaked out of a detox clinics to feed her drink habit; and

* Lost jobs and her driving licence and took up with aggressive partners as a result of her debilitating round-the-clock illness.

Recounting some of the hellish low points of her addiction, Sharon said: “I used to sit at home, close the curtains and drink as much as I could – I thought that was a glamorous day.

“At 8am I would be going to the off-licence – the Spar – and getting a litre of vodka.

“People must have thought it was incredible the amount of ‘christenings’ and ‘weddings’ I used to go to because that’s where I told them I was.

“I would alternate the off licence because I didn’t want people to see how bad I was.

“Throughout all this, my parents and friends went through hell trying to help me out.”

In her mid-20s, Sharon was in the throes of deep alcoholism and a drug addiction.

She had moved to London after winning a place at the prestigious Italia Conti acting academy at the tender age of 17.

But even then, she said half the attraction of moving was her devotion to the idea of the bright lights of the London party scene.

It was a far cry from her formative years back home in Abergavenny where she says she was raised by supportive parents.

“I was very fortunate I had a fantastic family and brilliant upbringing,” she said.

“I had the luxury of going to boarding school.

“While I was there I was struggling in class and struggling with reading and writing.

“They picked up I had dyslexia. Straight away I thought I was thick and felt like I didn’t fit in.

“I pretended to be ill but you can’t skive in boarding school because you are living there.

“Then when you miss one day, you miss a lot more and I came back in and people are like: ‘Where have you been?’

“I was a bit of an outcast.”

In an attempt to gain popularity, Sharon said she soon started to misbehave in class and get into trouble on purpose to win the approval of her peers.

Then, aged 13, she says she thought she had discovered the answer to her all her problems – in the shape of alchol.

“I wanted to be a people-pleaser, for people to like me,” she added.

“I was very naughty, started getting into trouble, then started smoking at a young age and then I found what I thought was the cure to all my problems.

“I used to steal alcohol from my mum and dad, drink vodka and put water back and think they wouldn’t notice.

“It was at 15 when I started becoming quite naughty – as in drinking to the extreme.

“That was my answer to everything because I was fun, outgoing. I would get the most wrecked and the most embarrassing.

“The problem was I thought I had a whole load of friends who were laughing with me when they were more likely to be laughing at me.”

Sharon’s penchant for pretending meant she found a talent for drama in school.

She describes it as the one thing she “thrived” at and after a few auditions for films, her talent was noticed and she was handed a place at the Italia Conti Academy.

She was mesmerised by the trappings of the entertainment world – including the endless shindigs which she saw as a chance to let her hair down further.

And that also exposed her to class A “uppers” – drugs being passed around on the party scene.

She said: “I saw that as an opportunity to be in London where the big bright lights and nightclubs were and kind of went there for the wrong reasons.

“I ended up going down the partying route quite a lot in the entertainment world.

“The style of music I was into was drum and bass and grime and jungle and garage. I basically started using.”

With Sharon drinking and taking drugs, her lifestyle became more hectic.

And all the while she was hiding the level of her boozing and using – with her drug of choice being cocaine.

“I would go nights without sleeping, it was just mainly weekends. I was drinking every night.

“I thought a bottle of wine was okay but I was actually going into three bottles of wine.

“I used to do some pantos and a lot of people used to party but I noticed I would always be one of the last ones out and the first up for drinking the next morning.

“There’s moments that I kept making the wrong choices and what comes with that is I would attract the wrong type of partners.

“It would be two people drinking and drug-fuelled and would be quite violent and aggressive.”

“I was quite secretive with it. I would hide stuff from people and didn’t want to share it. I became very selfish.”

Eventually Sharon moved back to Newport for a job selling advertisting to restaurants and pubs but her drinking continued.

And the effect of her continued boozing didn’t go unnoticed.

“I used to drink at lunchtimes and my colleague said to me: ‘It will be a matter of time before you pick up in the morning.’”

It was at the age of 28 that Sharon recognised that she needed help.

She was admitted to a branch of the famous Priory clinic, in Birmingham, but despite being happy during her 28-day stay in the clean-up clinic, Sharon admits she never fully embraced the Alcoholics Anonymous sessions and 12-step road to recovery programme.

“I went in because I wanted my family to be okay – I didn’t do it for myself,” she said.

“But I still wanted to drink. They were amazing doctors in the Priory, the best of the best.

“Everyone was saying you need to sort this out.

“I just kind of did what I thought I had to do – it just had to be done. It put everybody’s mind at rest to show I wanted to do something.”

In fact Sharon claims she ended up drinking inside the clinic after she sussed out where the security cameras were, broke out and bought vodka from an Oddbins she had noticed on the way in.

And after coming out, it took reaching rock bottom and reaching her lowest points – including her shame-faced 9am proposal to her doctor after another vodka binge – to trigger Sharon to turn her life around.

Sharon said: “I actually got worse and worse – I couldn’t hold down a job, I had to move in with my mum because I was incapable of doing anything.

“The last four years of drinking was intense, 24-hours round-the-clock and I can remember the dates and times when things happened, when I lost my driving licence and a load of accidents I had.

“I worked it out I must probably lost the government more than £50,000 due to my illness, because that’s what people call it: an illness.

“I hurt so many people along the way.”

But on the morning of March 18, 2009, Sharon had a eureka moment in which she realised that she might be the one to blame for her problems.

She said that morning she began pouring all the alcohol she owned down the drain, and hasn’t touched a drop since.

“You find when you are drinking you are very selfish and very self-centred,” she said.

“I had a victim mentality and thought it was everybody else’s fault.

“When I woke up and thought maybe I was the problem, I never touched a drop since that morning.”

Now after a stint volunteering, Sharon is mentoring young people who find themselves in a similar situation to the one she was in and offers support through the new beenthereb4 website.

Sharon’s big project is a new alcohol-free music festival she has organised called Breakin’ Out in Abergavenny, which will be headlined by Tinchy Stryder.

“My passion and my new addiction now is helping others,” she said.

“I started volunteering with young people in Abergavenny. They are so rewarding. I found if I tell something about myself they are able to tell me things about them.

“We have an open and honest relationship.

“When somebody texts me and says they have made it to three days sober that’s, to me, better than any drug I have taken.”

The inaugural festival, largely organised by volunteers but also sponsored by Monmouthshire council, will take place on September 8 and has been shaped by the feedback of many of the young people Sharon works with.

Sharon says “positive role models” appearing on-stage can help inspire people and show they can have a good time without alcohol.

Meanwhile she herself has put a smile on the face of the people closest to her.

The day Sharon decided to take control and no longer live in thrall to alcohol, coincidentally fell on her father’s birthday.

“He says it’s the best birthday present ever – seeing me sober.”

:: To find out more about Sharon’s work visit www.beenthereb4.co.uk or for more details on the festival log onto www.breakinoutfestival.com